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Betting on: Samsung to flood India with new smartphones
The fortunes of Samsung’s smartphone business in the US depends on the decision of Lucy Koh, the judge presiding over the Korean giant’s case against Apple, Sachin Dave reports.
The fortunes of Samsung’s smartphone business in the US depends on the decision of Lucy Koh, the judge presiding over the Korean giant’s case against Apple.
Back home, however, the company is gearing up for another battle.
The company, which already commands 37% marketshare in the smartphone category, is targeting 60% share by the year end.
Samsung plans to do so by carpet bombing the Indian handset market with new models — smartphones, dual-sim phones and basic phones.
“We are broadly targeting 45-50% marketshare in the overall handset market in the next couple of years and 60% share in the smartphone segment by year-end,” Asim Warsi, vice-president, Samsung mobile, India, told HT. “We will be launching new models in various categories that would cater to different segments in India.”
Samsung will launch 25 models by December mainly focussing on the Android platform, mainly to take on Nokia, Apple and domestic players such as Micromax.
The company launched 20 new cellphones in India in the first half of the year.
The second half will see high-end phones including Galaxy Note 2 and second Microsoft Windows-operated phone ATIV S launched in the market.
Last year Samsung recorded total revenues of Rs. 20,000 crore from India across categories.
Samsung has recently seen double-digit jump in sales due to the increase of user preference for Android platform.
Nokia, the market leader by the sheer number of mobiles it sells, has been finding it tough due to the absence of any device that works on Android, said industry experts.
